It seems we couldn't have been more wrong in Iraq. We see now that North Korea was 3 years away from a nuclear weapon. Not to mention, Iran is now enriching uranium.
Yet we squandered our military resources chasing down militias armed with leftover 1970s weapon technology, hiding in caves in Afghanistan, and toppling a contained dictator with no active nuclear or biological weapons programs in Iraq.
I'd like to know why Colin Powell wasn't before than U.N. making the case for the imminent development of nuclear weapons in North Korea instead of the case for the nuclear program in Iraq, which as I recall even then we believed was still many years from producing a nuclear weapon?
Was this another massive intelligence blunder, or did we just not care?
Either way, now it's too late. We don't dare strike their nuclear facilities because they might retaliate by using their nuclear weapons against their neighbors. At least that's what North Korea wants us to grapple with.
I guess it's a good thing for North Korea it doesn't have oi.. er, *cough*, "strategic economic and geopolitical importance".
> The philosophical question at hand is how do human rights come about? > Are they a human construct and codified in a social contract or are they > intrinsic to a human being?
Such a perspective escapes the Randian.
He has already provided his answer: "Rights exist even if they are not enforced by anybody. They are just unexercised." Further, he says, "Property rights are innate."
Indeed, "Though I wouldn't say that the weak have none, it's demonstrable that the strong have more. And, really, this is exactly as it should be, evolution shows us this."
Eureka. It is therefore it ought to be!
Libertarianism (as in the Libertarian party and Ayn Rand) is an excellent psychological rationalization for an egotistical, narcissistic life. At least this is to what I have always assigned its apparent appeal.
Lacking any ground upon which to found his rationalistic philosophy, he founds it upon nothing at all. The only reaction he is capable of, like a broken record, is to place his fingers in his ears and shout out his assertions over and over, louder and louder, uncompromising: "My rights are inalienable and innate!" "It is therefore it ought to be!" The intensity of his assertions is the measure of their truth.
This makes debating a Randian a pointless task. Having no common ground, the "debate" is a quarrel to vilify, insult, and humiliate the opponent. Fortunately for civilization, Libertarians excel at losing this exchange in the public sphere, leaving them primarily to troll the dark alleys of the internet.
So Stallman is against all software patents? I would certainly like to read his justification of this position.
Consider the following argument for at least one category of software patents (just off the top of my head):
Supposing you recognize the legitimacy of any patents at all, it seems to me that you would agree at least that certain software UI components should be patentable.
Suppose I am tasked with operating a cog producing industrial machine. It is an enormous, clunky machine with a complex and cumbersome operator interface. One day it occurs to me that a single actuator of novel design would be capable of providing the full range of control necessary to operate such a machine, while at the same time affording intuitive, efficient operator interaction. I proceed to construct a prototype of my Novel Actuator, and upon interfacing it with the cog machine, find it to be every bit as effective as I imagined.
Now, assuming my Novel Actuator meets the other tests of patentability, and no doubt there may exist some such device which would, I may patent the Novel Actuator.
It is not difficult to reconceive the scenario above in terms of a cog producing machine operator interface fashioned of computer software rather than of iron and bolts. I see no reason to believe that there could not exist a software counterpart to the Novel Actuator. And I see no reason that, barring an explicit prohibition on software patents, the Software Novel Actuator would not be patentable.
Indeed, they are both Operator (User) Interfaces. They differ only in the medium in which they are implemented: one in iron, one in software (or more specifically, a particular magnetic pattern on metal platter).
So while I think there are certainly many bad software patents, and I tend to think that software patents may need to be for shorter terms, it seems to me untenable to maintain both that there may be patents on components implemented in iron and steel, and that there may not not be patents on components implemented in software.
The only potentially successful argument I see against software patents in scenarios such as I have described - dealing with operator interfaces - might be that allowing patents on software operator interface components will as a whole stifle more innovation than it will spur. I find this unlikely. I suspect that a combination of shorter patent terms and stricter patent office scrutiny would result in a software patent situation not essentially less beneficial to society than that of patents on traditional mechanical devices.
Now I suppose it's possible that mechanical device patents do not benefit society either, but I'll leave that question to an economist. I wonder what Stallman thinks of patents on mechanical devices. It would not surprise me if he supports them, mirroring his fragmented views of copyright. As I recall, while against traditional copyright for software, he supports traditional copyright for works such as books and music.
Whether it is is 56% of 39%, it is equally distressing.
That even 40% of those business and law students who very well may be the future business and political leaders of our society lack the integrity to stand or fall on their own merits, is deeply saddening.
Rather than earn their degree and reputation by hard work and dedication, they instead choose to tell the lie that the work of another is their own, fraudulently misrepresenting their own abilities, work ethic, and personal integrity. They rationalize their despicable behavior on the notion that there is nothing wrong with cheating, only with being caught.
No doubt they will fit in well in the halls of government.
In preparation for their arrival, we should continue to push for more transparency and public accountability in our government. They are coming. Let's be ready for them.
Yes it does. Let me explain, for your benefit and for the benefit of the topic submitter.
If your client does not accept incoming external connections and share torrents (if your client is not on an externally accessible device and you don't have port forwarding configured), all other peers will assign you a priority lower than every other peer that is sharing.
This doesn't just mean you will be last in line to receive the requested torrent. It means that all other clients will relegate your request to the small segment of bandwidth configured to be set aside for non-sharing peers.
While it is possible for you to still obtain a fast download speed in the case that your request is fielded by such a large number of peers either whose bandwidth is under utilized or collectively whose non-sharing peer bandwidth allocation gives you an acceptable transfer rate, in most every case your download speed will be only a fraction of what it would be were you sharing.
And while I have not used BitTorrent in a long time now, it would not surprise me if clients were to implement logic to completely cut off "deadbeat" peers (freeloaders) such as yourself. Clients are by default configured to share with non-sharing peers not out of the goodness of their hearts, but because it is advantageous to allow peers who did not previously have anything to share to get a footing in the network on the premise that some of those peers may go on to become outstanding sharers. If however a peer downloads a great deal of data but fails to begin sharing within a reasonable period of time, that peer is probably a freeloader and can be safely blacklisted.
The "little extra time for things to get up to speed" you are seeing is the wait for all other leechers ahead of you to finish, opening up room in peers' non-sharing peer bandwidth to accomodate you.
Which I hope speaks to the question of why on earth would this university network administrator want to allow his users to use university bandwidth to get bonus points with copyright infringers so that they themselves can infringe copyright more effectively...
If you must do something, why don't you quietly encourage them to setup their own torrents on the local intranet? Surely between an entire campus of students there is enough shareable music to keep them occupied.
The taxpayers of North Carolina aren't sending their hard earned money to the public university system in order to provide new markets for this professor to profit from. They are sending their money there to educate their children and their fellow citizens' children because they value the benefits of an educated citizenry.
If as the professor says, providing lecture recordings online can make a critical difference in the performance of students who may have missed class, who had a difficult time with the language, or who just need more time to let it sink in, then the university should, in the interests of fulfilling its taxpayer funded mandate, offer this program through the university at cost as an additional fee or as part of tuition.
Cut out the 3rd party hosting service middle man, and cut out the professor's profiteering.
He should be rewarded through the merit based university compensation program (wait, you mean they don't have one! *gasp*)
A taxpayer funded employee has found a more effective way to do what it is we are paying him to do. I don't bill my company an extra hour when I find a new method to increase the quality of my code, I'm expected to just do it. It's part of my job. The taxpayers of North Carolina should expect no less.
1. A note about iPhoto. iPhoto comes with iLife. While iLife was probably bundled with your machine, it is not bundled with the OS or OS upgrades. You'll need to purchase the (approx.) yearly upgrades yourself if you want access to the new functionality.
5. The introduction of yet another UI styling in 10.4 adds to the mess introduced by (seemingly with little reason) previously remaking many core applications with the then new brushed metal UI. Now, you can go to a third party application or repository and supposedly restyle or retheme some of these applications, but I for one have no interest in jeporadizing the stability of my system just to clean up after Apple. With a good GNU/Linux distribution, you get multiple distribution tested and approved UI themes and styles. These themes and styles packages are integrated with and supported by the distribution, and any conflicts or inconsistencies they cause are legitimate candidates for bugs to be filed in the distribution's bug tracking system.
I won't even start on the headaches the lack of virtual desktops or some sort of user defined window groups (which virtual desktops are), cause for trying to use OS X as a development workstation (considering carrying 4 monitors around would defeat the purpose of having a mobile development platform).
6. There is a tremendous difference between dropping an application into a folder, compared to installing an application from a distribution against which it is tested for conflicts against (ideally) all other distribution packages, for orphaned files, and critical bugs. There is no mature solution for this available for OS X (there is Fink, but it has obvious integration problems with "native" OS X applications, both as far as installation/removal, updates, and ordinary interoperability).
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It seems we couldn't have been more wrong in Iraq. We see now that North Korea was 3 years away from a nuclear weapon. Not to mention, Iran is now enriching uranium.
Yet we squandered our military resources chasing down militias armed with leftover 1970s weapon technology, hiding in caves in Afghanistan, and toppling a contained dictator with no active nuclear or biological weapons programs in Iraq.
I'd like to know why Colin Powell wasn't before than U.N. making the case for the imminent development of nuclear weapons in North Korea instead of the case for the nuclear program in Iraq, which as I recall even then we believed was still many years from producing a nuclear weapon?
Was this another massive intelligence blunder, or did we just not care?
Either way, now it's too late. We don't dare strike their nuclear facilities because they might retaliate by using their nuclear weapons against their neighbors. At least that's what North Korea wants us to grapple with.
I guess it's a good thing for North Korea it doesn't have oi.. er, *cough*, "strategic economic and geopolitical importance".
> The philosophical question at hand is how do human rights come about?
> Are they a human construct and codified in a social contract or are they
> intrinsic to a human being?
Such a perspective escapes the Randian.
He has already provided his answer: "Rights exist even if they are not enforced by anybody. They are just unexercised." Further, he says, "Property rights are innate."
Indeed, "Though I wouldn't say that the weak have none, it's demonstrable that the strong have more. And, really, this is exactly as it should be, evolution shows us this."
Eureka. It is therefore it ought to be!
Libertarianism (as in the Libertarian party and Ayn Rand) is an excellent psychological rationalization for an egotistical, narcissistic life. At least this is to what I have always assigned its apparent appeal.
Lacking any ground upon which to found his rationalistic philosophy, he founds it upon nothing at all. The only reaction he is capable of, like a broken record, is to place his fingers in his ears and shout out his assertions over and over, louder and louder, uncompromising: "My rights are inalienable and innate!" "It is therefore it ought to be!" The intensity of his assertions is the measure of their truth.
This makes debating a Randian a pointless task. Having no common ground, the "debate" is a quarrel to vilify, insult, and humiliate the opponent. Fortunately for civilization, Libertarians excel at losing this exchange in the public sphere, leaving them primarily to troll the dark alleys of the internet.
So Stallman is against all software patents? I would certainly like to read his justification of this position.
Consider the following argument for at least one category of software patents (just off the top of my head):
Supposing you recognize the legitimacy of any patents at all, it seems to me that you would agree at least that certain software UI components should be patentable.
Suppose I am tasked with operating a cog producing industrial machine. It is an enormous, clunky machine with a complex and cumbersome operator interface. One day it occurs to me that a single actuator of novel design would be capable of providing the full range of control necessary to operate such a machine, while at the same time affording intuitive, efficient operator interaction. I proceed to construct a prototype of my Novel Actuator, and upon interfacing it with the cog machine, find it to be every bit as effective as I imagined.
Now, assuming my Novel Actuator meets the other tests of patentability, and no doubt there may exist some such device which would, I may patent the Novel Actuator.
It is not difficult to reconceive the scenario above in terms of a cog producing machine operator interface fashioned of computer software rather than of iron and bolts. I see no reason to believe that there could not exist a software counterpart to the Novel Actuator. And I see no reason that, barring an explicit prohibition on software patents, the Software Novel Actuator would not be patentable.
Indeed, they are both Operator (User) Interfaces. They differ only in the medium in which they are implemented: one in iron, one in software (or more specifically, a particular magnetic pattern on metal platter).
So while I think there are certainly many bad software patents, and I tend to think that software patents may need to be for shorter terms, it seems to me untenable to maintain both that there may be patents on components implemented in iron and steel, and that there may not not be patents on components implemented in software.
The only potentially successful argument I see against software patents in scenarios such as I have described - dealing with operator interfaces - might be that allowing patents on software operator interface components will as a whole stifle more innovation than it will spur. I find this unlikely. I suspect that a combination of shorter patent terms and stricter patent office scrutiny would result in a software patent situation not essentially less beneficial to society than that of patents on traditional mechanical devices.
Now I suppose it's possible that mechanical device patents do not benefit society either, but I'll leave that question to an economist. I wonder what Stallman thinks of patents on mechanical devices. It would not surprise me if he supports them, mirroring his fragmented views of copyright. As I recall, while against traditional copyright for software, he supports traditional copyright for works such as books and music.
Whether it is is 56% of 39%, it is equally distressing.
That even 40% of those business and law students who very well may be the future business and political leaders of our society lack the integrity to stand or fall on their own merits, is deeply saddening.
Rather than earn their degree and reputation by hard work and dedication, they instead choose to tell the lie that the work of another is their own, fraudulently misrepresenting their own abilities, work ethic, and personal integrity. They rationalize their despicable behavior on the notion that there is nothing wrong with cheating, only with being caught.
No doubt they will fit in well in the halls of government.
In preparation for their arrival, we should continue to push for more transparency and public accountability in our government. They are coming. Let's be ready for them.
Yes it does. Let me explain, for your benefit and for the benefit of the topic submitter.
If your client does not accept incoming external connections and share torrents (if your client is not on an externally accessible device and you don't have port forwarding configured), all other peers will assign you a priority lower than every other peer that is sharing.
This doesn't just mean you will be last in line to receive the requested torrent. It means that all other clients will relegate your request to the small segment of bandwidth configured to be set aside for non-sharing peers.
While it is possible for you to still obtain a fast download speed in the case that your request is fielded by such a large number of peers either whose bandwidth is under utilized or collectively whose non-sharing peer bandwidth allocation gives you an acceptable transfer rate, in most every case your download speed will be only a fraction of what it would be were you sharing.
And while I have not used BitTorrent in a long time now, it would not surprise me if clients were to implement logic to completely cut off "deadbeat" peers (freeloaders) such as yourself. Clients are by default configured to share with non-sharing peers not out of the goodness of their hearts, but because it is advantageous to allow peers who did not previously have anything to share to get a footing in the network on the premise that some of those peers may go on to become outstanding sharers. If however a peer downloads a great deal of data but fails to begin sharing within a reasonable period of time, that peer is probably a freeloader and can be safely blacklisted.
The "little extra time for things to get up to speed" you are seeing is the wait for all other leechers ahead of you to finish, opening up room in peers' non-sharing peer bandwidth to accomodate you.
Which I hope speaks to the question of why on earth would this university network administrator want to allow his users to use university bandwidth to get bonus points with copyright infringers so that they themselves can infringe copyright more effectively...
If you must do something, why don't you quietly encourage them to setup their own torrents on the local intranet? Surely between an entire campus of students there is enough shareable music to keep them occupied.
Kudos to the professor for innovating!
The taxpayers of North Carolina aren't sending their hard earned money to the public university system in order to provide new markets for this professor to profit from. They are sending their money there to educate their children and their fellow citizens' children because they value the benefits of an educated citizenry.
If as the professor says, providing lecture recordings online can make a critical difference in the performance of students who may have missed class, who had a difficult time with the language, or who just need more time to let it sink in, then the university should, in the interests of fulfilling its taxpayer funded mandate, offer this program through the university at cost as an additional fee or as part of tuition.
Cut out the 3rd party hosting service middle man, and cut out the professor's profiteering.
He should be rewarded through the merit based university compensation program (wait, you mean they don't have one! *gasp*)
A taxpayer funded employee has found a more effective way to do what it is we are paying him to do. I don't bill my company an extra hour when I find a new method to increase the quality of my code, I'm expected to just do it. It's part of my job. The taxpayers of North Carolina should expect no less.
1. A note about iPhoto. iPhoto comes with iLife. While iLife was probably bundled with your machine, it is not bundled with the OS or OS upgrades. You'll need to purchase the (approx.) yearly upgrades yourself if you want access to the new functionality.
5. The introduction of yet another UI styling in 10.4 adds to the mess introduced by (seemingly with little reason) previously remaking many core applications with the then new brushed metal UI. Now, you can go to a third party application or repository and supposedly restyle or retheme some of these applications, but I for one have no interest in jeporadizing the stability of my system just to clean up after Apple. With a good GNU/Linux distribution, you get multiple distribution tested and approved UI themes and styles. These themes and styles packages are integrated with and supported by the distribution, and any conflicts or inconsistencies they cause are legitimate candidates for bugs to be filed in the distribution's bug tracking system.
I won't even start on the headaches the lack of virtual desktops or some sort of user defined window groups (which virtual desktops are), cause for trying to use OS X as a development workstation (considering carrying 4 monitors around would defeat the purpose of having a mobile development platform).
6. There is a tremendous difference between dropping an application into a folder, compared to installing an application from a distribution against which it is tested for conflicts against (ideally) all other distribution packages, for orphaned files, and critical bugs. There is no mature solution for this available for OS X (there is Fink, but it has obvious integration problems with "native" OS X applications, both as far as installation/removal, updates, and ordinary interoperability).
I own a recent 12" Powerbook.